Danica Roem to push for transgender health care along with focus on traffic

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Danica Roem: One of the nation’s first openly transgender elected officials

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The Democrat, who will be one of the nation’s first openly transgender elected officials, ousted Virginia’s most socially conservative state lawmaker to win a spot in the Virginia House of Delegates.

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The Democrat, who will be one of the nation’s first openly transgender elected officials, ousted Virginia’s most socially conservative state lawmaker to win a spot in the Virginia House of Delegates.

June 2, 2017Democratic primary candidate Danica Roem makes her pitch to voters at the Bull Run Swim & Racquet Club while debating three fellow Democrats vying to unseat Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William) in Manassas, Va. Roem, a Democrat from Northern Virginia who will be one of the nation’s first openly transgender elected officials, stunned the political establishment by trouncing 13-term incumbent Marshall to become the state’s first openly transgender elected official. J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post

Del.-elect Danica Roem, the transgender woman who is perhaps the best known of the flood of Democrats who won seats this week in the Virginia state house, said Friday that she wants to make it easier for people to get health insurance coverage for treatment related to gender transitions.

Roem (Prince William), who plans to focus mostly on easing traffic congestion in her district, said she also wants to work with the Democratic caucus in the House of Delegates to develop a bill that would require insurance companies to cover the costs of hormone medication, surgery and other treatments.

That kind of coverage already is mandated for most insurance plans under a 2016 anti-discrimination regulation that is part of the Affordable Care Act. But amid Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, the Trump administration has threatened to do away with the statute, LGBT advocates say.

Roem falls to her knees after getting a call from former vice president Joe Biden congratulating her on her election. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

A spokesman for state House Majority Leader M. Kirkland Cox (R-Colonial Heights), the Republican Party’s designee for House speaker in 2018 should the party remain in control of the chamber, accused Roem of abandoning her message of improving traffic in her district and “pivoting to a divisive social agenda.”

“The House is going to focus on improving our economy, schools and roads,” the spokesman, Parker Slaybaugh, said in a statement.

Advocates say several states, including Virginia, have not updated their policies to match the Obama administration statute, in part because President Trump’s White House may jettison it.

Virginia is among 37 states that do not have their own laws or regulations prohibiting insurers from denying coverage due to gender identity or sexual preference, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBT research group. Maryland is also in that group.

The District implemented a ban against excluding coverage for transgender care in 2014.

“A lot of insurance plans specifically forbid the coverage of those services and treatment for reasons related to gender transition,” said Sarah McBride, a transgender woman who is national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, “despite the fact that every major medical association has determined that that type of treatment is medically necessary.”

The latest stories and details on the 2017 Virginia general election and race for governor.

Douglas Gray, executive director of the Virginia Association of Health Plans, an advocacy group for insurers, said he is unaware of insurers not complying with the federal statute. But Gray added that whether such coverage is rejected could depend on the type of treatment an individual is receiving and on the nature of their insurance plan.

A “self-insured” plan, where a patient’s employer assumes all the financial risk of coverage, has rules dictated by the employer, not the insurance company, Gray said. Those plans also are regulated by the U.S. Labor Department, not the state, he said. “It really does depend on the example and where it comes from to ascertain why it has not been approved,” Gray said.

The idea of improving health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender patients more generally in Virginia couldreceive a warmer reception in Richmond after significant gains by Democrats in Tuesday’s elections. Three yet-to-be decided races will determine whether the party gains control of the state House for the first time since 2000.

Roem said she hopes to prevent situations similar to what she experienced after she began her physical gender transition in 2013, when she was denied coverage under her insurance plan for the cost of hormone medication prescribed by her doctor.

“I didn’t even get to have a conversation with them,” she recalled, saying she learned through an email that she would have to pay the full cost of the medicine.